


Act of Contrition

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 06:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/794743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightmares from Jim's past return to haunt him.<br/>Sequel to the episode 'Secret'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Act of Contrition

Act of Contrition

All pre-existing characters are the property of the respective creators and producers of "The Sentinel." No copyright infringement is intended. This piece of fiction was created solely for the entertainment of the readers and not monetary gain. 

All new characters and situations are the sole property and responsibility of the author. This fiction bears my copyright of the date above. 

Rated NC-17 for consenting m/m sex, and language. 

Summary - This is a sequel of sorts to the episode, Secret. 

## Act of Contrition

by BCW  
May 12, 1997  


Ellison rested his hip against the edge of the sleek oak desk as he glared hard at the man by the window. His body seemed to radiate with barely leashed anger. "We're a team, Colonel! We've been together, almost since the beginning! You can't just throw all that away!" 

"I'm not throwing anything away, Ellison." 

"Can't we alter the mission plan?" 

The Colonel shook his head. "I don't move by your timetable." 

He felt his anger crank up another notch. "A few days, what difference can it make?" 

"I'm afraid it'll take longer than a few days." 

"Just how sick is Holland?" Jim asked incredulously, "I just saw him, he looked fine." 

There was a marked pause as the Colonel's eyes shifted away from the captain's intense scrutiny. "I had him transferred." 

Jim tried to reign in his hostility, by repeatedly reminding himself this man was his commanding officer. "I thought you just said he was sick." It would be easier to control himself if he didn't have such a dislike for him. 

"When Sam Holland recovers, he'll assume command of the 25th." 

"The 25th? Command? Holland's an outstanding *pilot*, a pilot dammit! He couldn't *command* a squadron of two-year olds! What are you playing at, Colonel?" 

"Watch yourself, captain," Oliver said, finally losing his own temper. "You're treading on dangerous ground!" 

Ellison's jaw tightened against his response, instead he said, "We've got a mission in four weeks. Who am I going to get to replace him now? I can't fly a team into that jungle without a pilot. . .a pilot they can trust." 

Oliver tapped the pen he'd been holding on the desk three times before tossing it aside. "I wouldn't leave you dry, Captain Ellison. Holland's replacement is due any minute." 

Jim hazarded the man a brief glance full of annoyance. "Respectfully, Colonel. *I* pick members of *my* team." 

"Not this time." 

"Why not?" 

"Because it's been taken out of your hands." A knock at the door interrupted the exchange. "Come!" He barked. 

A young man entered the room. When he stepped into the light, Jim got a good look at his features. A full-blooded Native American, fresh faced, cherry, no where near ripe cherry. 

"Captain Ellison, this is your new pilot, Anderson Walker." 

For a moment, as their eyes met, Jim thought he saw something. . .a flash of. . .a spark of current that set his teeth on edge. The kid visibly shuddered, shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, then blinked, and the contact was broken, and there was only blue eyes battling with deep brown. 

(What was all that about?) Jim shook his head to clear it. "You robbing nurseries now, Colonel?" He said gruffly to cover his disorientation. "How old are you, kid?" 

Walker snapped to attention, it was obvious, he had felt it, too. "Is that a rhetorical question, sir?" 

"Excuse me?" 

"If your question implies you feel I'm too young to pilot an aircraft, I graduated in the top 20 percent of my class at fly school, sir." 

He sounded cocky enough to be a pilot. "And, how long ago was that, Chief?" 

Anderson stiffened noticeably at the name, tension showing in his stance. "Six months ago, sir, and I would appreciate if you wouldn't call me 'Chief'." 

Ellison revised 'cocky' to 'arrogant', as he pointedly ignored the protest. "Six months." Maybe take him down a notch or two . . . "And, how many missions have you clocked in that six months, son?" 

The kid had the grace to look uncomfortable. "I haven't had much chance to fly solo." Belatedly adding, "Sir." 

"Yeah, right! Colonel, you can't expect us to take a cherry on a mission to the deep jungle." 

"Why not, Ellison? The mission is reconnaissance, surveillance and training for some high brass official wannabe in some small Peruvian outback country the size of a fly speck. No espionage, no danger, strictly routine. I can't see a problem." 

"But, sir. . ." 

"No, buts." Colonel Oliver rose to his feet. "Hard training. He needs to get the routine down before the you clock out. Captain Ellison, make that your sole responsibility. Now, gentlemen, that out of the way, dismissed." 

Anderson saluted and walked briskly from the room. Jim's salute was less asserted and he exited with a distinct sullenness to his step.   
  


* * *

Ellison angrily told himself, for then ten thousandth time, he didn't dislike the *kid*, wasn't angry with the *kid*, he disliked the *circumstances*. He had no idea what had happened in the Colonel's office, but that, coupled with everything else, was the reason he was pissed off. Give Walker a couple of years under his belt and he'd probably be a good operative, just not here, not now, not his squad. 

This kid reminded him of a thunderstorm: wind, force and destruction. No, that wasn't right. He was like a newborn Arabian stallion, all legs, energy, and enthusiasm, but awkward as hell. He opened his mouth frequently to show his head was full of book knowledge, but that was all. The youngster was head and heart and spirit, and no experience to back it up. The kid was hostile and wary, not much confidence. A combination that made him impatient and reckless with his decisions. Anderson listened, but his pride seemed to get in the way if reprimanded. On a dangerous mission that was an armed bomb. 

Ellison spent most of the initiation training sessions pulling hard on his reins to bring him to heel. His high level of energy was draining. It was like trying to catch and hold the sunlight with your bare hands. Jim picked at him, pushing and prodding him, trying to break him. Telling himself, it was for the kid's own good. He followed every order, took everything his commander threw at him and more. Nothing Ellison did discouraged him no matter how hard he tried. 

It had been over an hour since they'd started practice. The two men panting from the exertion, sweat sheeting from them in small rivers. 

(He's trying to kill me!,) J.D. Hathaway, Ellison's second in command thought not a little desperately, regretting his offer to partner for a few minutes on the mat. (Finish this!) He threw his weight into the straight arm, backhanded swing. Jim blocked it an instant before it contacted his face. Putting all his pent-up anger and frustration behind it, he countered with a blow to his opponent's solar plexus that set him rocking back on his heels, gasping for breath. 

"Easy, Cap," J.D. wheezed, fighting to fill his lungs with oxygen. "The lung you're trying to skewer with that rib. . .I'm using it!" 

"Then stop dancing with me!," Jim snapped, "I need a workout, not a date!," then began an attack that forced the man back, fiercely scrambling to defend himself. "Besides, you're not my type!" 

J.D. countered and deflected only half the blows delivered hoping he could hold his commander off until he could amass his senses enough for self-preservation to kick in. Ellison had the gloves off; this was for real. 

Jim saw the subtle change in J.D.'s features as he began to press the attack and was ready for him. He took him by the wrist, using his momentum to bring him up and over and down on the mat, hard enough to drive him deep into the ground. 

J.D. lay there stunned. "Dammit, Cap, if I'd wanted to commit suicide, I'd pick a less painful way to do it!" 

"If you were paying more attention. . ." 

"Captain Ellison!" 

Jim turned at the sound of his name. Their pilot was storming in the room, his face dark with anger. (Good, an actual opponent.) Jim thought evilly, he needed a good fight to blow off steam. "Give us a minute, will you, J.D." 

Trying, unsuccessfully to hide his relief, J.D. said, "Sure, Cap." The man got up, voicing moans and groans, nodded to the kid and limped from the room. 

He took a deep breath to cool some of the blood lust singing through his veins. "You want something?" 

Anderson stopped in his captain's path. "Did Colonel Oliver sign off on the roster for tomorrow's mission?" 

"I make up the duty roster." 

"I want to know why you left my name off." 

"Because you're not ready." Jim grabbed a towel from a nearby chair and wiped his face. "Maybe next time." 

"Not ready? You've been busting my butt fifteen hours a day for the better part of three weeks!" The kid's voice rose a level. "If I'm not ready, what was all that for?" 

"The Colonel." Jim kept his tone low. "Sorry, kid, I know you worked hard, and if we had six months, a year more, maybe. . . but the trouble is, we don't. The mission is tomorrow. In my opinion, you're not ready now." 

"The truth is, you'll never think I'm ready!" Anderson snapped angrily. 

Jim fought to remain calm. "I just told you the truth." 

"You have no right to keep me off this mission!" 

"Well, that's where we differ, Chief. As senior officer, I have EVERY right to keep you off this mission." 

"I told you not to call me Chief!" Walker snarled at him, taking up a defensive stance. 

Ellison raised an eyebrow at the kid's tone. "Would you rather me call you cherry? 'Cuz that's what you are. Even with all the training you're bragging about you haven't developed enough control to keep from wrapping us around a tree in that jungle." He invaded Walker's personal space. "Whine and cry all you want! I'm responsible for my men! You're not ready; you don't go on the mission!" He moved in another inch, forcing Walker back a step. "Another thing, you don't like me calling you Chief, huh? I'll stop when you can *make* me stop! Try it!" 

"You'd love that! Get me kicked out for striking a superior!" 

"No, just you and me. Game, Chief?" He waited for a response. Receiving only a sullen glare, he grunted. "Yeah, right." Then turned to walk away. 

The kid's face darkened with anger. "Don't you walk away from me, Ellison!" Walker hurled himself at Ellison's retreating form with a shout of pure rage. 

In a blur of color and motion, Jim launched into a spinning back kick. 

Anderson stopped his flight abruptly at the sight of the sole of his captain's foot just centimeters from his face. The rush of air from the barely aborted impact reverberated down his spine in an icy shaft of fear. He realized he'd barely escaped serious injury. 

"I could've taken your head off, kid." Jim flexed his foot, connecting with Walker's cheek in a stinging slap, sending the young pilot backwards off balance. He stepped back, bouncing lightly on the balls of both feet, his arms in a defensive, striking position. "Try a stunt like that again, and I will. You have to do more than THINK you can take me. And you're not even sure about that, are you? Hesitate while you try to decide between thought and action'll get you killed. Get your unit killed. It has to be second nature! I don't want the 3rd to go out in body bags 'cuz of some military politics that said you were ready when I know you're not! You're too cherry to be on a mission with my team. Do we understand one another?" He paused, then added. "Chief?" 

All the fight leeched out of Anderson in one heavy sigh of disillusionment. "Why do you hate me?" 

"I don't know you, kid." 

"But there's something about me you don't like. What is it?" 

"You're taking this whole thing personal. It isn't." 

"Then what is it? Every time I'm near you I can feel the tension emanating off you," he said softly, "It's like I turn on a switch. Lie to me, tell me you don't feel it too!" 

"I'm always tense before a mission, Chief. It has nothing to do with you." 

"If it's just the mission, I know a relaxation exercise that would help. My great-grandmother was the daughter of a shaman, she had the gift of sight. She taught me. . ." 

"I don't believe in all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo." Jim interrupted angrily. "This happens all the time. I'll handle it! Give me anything within the realm of my five senses and I'm just fine. What you need to concentrate on is you. Leave me and my tension alone!" 

The kid nodded sullenly and Captain Ellison turned again to walk away. "You ever been to Mississippi, Cap?" 

Jim glanced back. "No." 

"That's where I'm from. A tiny government built town they're ashamed to even call a reservation. It's the armpit of the world." The gleam in his eyes was chilling. "It's full of people like you and I've been fighting them all my life." 

Jim was stunned. "People like me?" 

"People who see me as inferior because I'm not white." 

He turned to face him. "That's the way you see this?" 

"That's the way it is!" He hissed through clenched teeth. 

"Kid, I wouldn't care if you were lime green with raspberry stripes, in an Ops team you're only as good as the man guarding your back." 

"And you don't think I'm good?" 

"No, I don't. But that has nothing to do with being Native American." 

Walker snarled, "Like hell it doesn't!" 

"It has to do with being unsure of your own abilities. You hesitate because of that and you get us *all* killed. I, for one, don't want to go out like that." 

"You can't kick me off the team!" 

"It's a done deal, Chief." 

"I'll go to Colonel Oliver." 

Jim smirked, (The kid had guts, not much for brains, but a lot of guts!) "Do what you have to do, kid." (So will I ,'cuz I don't want your death on my conscience.)   
  


* * *

Nearly twenty thousand feet between his boots and the thick canopy jungle -- 

They were showing no lights, carried nothing reflective, close quarter weapons and comm units, and were all dressed in dark camouflage tigerstripes, invisible in the blackness above their objective. Colonel Oliver had met the squad at the hangar to give them the coordinates and information they'd need to complete the mission. He inspected their equipment, declared them over provisioned, then issued the order to travel light, and break down all gear to the essentials. He assured them whatever else they needed would be sent to them after they settled in. 

This clandestine airborne operation was the culmination of five months of bone-wrenching, over the limit training-sixteen hours a day, eight days a week. They were coptering quietly in the blackness. Their mission to help the present government-in- power.' Ellison thought it a matter for politicians and diplomats. Hardly a job for one the most effective and highly secret counterterror forces in the world - Black Panther Ops. But it was his job to go where they sent him. Always the good soldier. 

"Yo, Cap! The Injun wants ya up front." 

Only the whites of his eyes were visible in the dimness of the craft. Captain Ellison had been staring out the open hatchway as he wrestled with a nagging feeling he couldn't identify and traitorous thoughts he wouldn't voice. He turned to face his second. 

"Trouble?" 

J.D. shrugged noncommittally. "Who knows, Cap. Probably hit turbulence, messed his pants and needs you to wipe his ass." 

"Lay off the kid, J.D.," Ellison growled, his own attitude about the young recruit making him surly. "You were new too, about a hundred years ago." 

"And I'd like to see a hundred more! No place in our squad's for cherries." 

He rose to his feet and started toward the bow of the ship. "Gotta get fire somewhere, J.D." 

"Let em get their fire somewhere away from *my* can!S 

Truthfully, Ellison would've liked Anderson Walker to be away from his squad's cans, too. They needed to function like a well-oiled machine and that was impossible with a cherry in their midst. He'd never figure out what made Oliver tick. He wasn't really certain he wanted to. 

"Why'd you let Oliver put him back on the roster?" 

"The last time I checked,S he said, over his shoulder. "A colonel outranks me." 

Jim stuck his head in the cockpit. "What's up, Chief?" 

The kid cut angry eyes at his Captain. He still HATED when he called him that. Taking it as a slur on his heritage while trying to convince himself Ellison said it with some affection, really, not conscious malice. That it was a moniker. Like their pointman was 'Scout', the medic, 'Patcher'. Like it was what he was in Ellison's eyes. 

"I just changed course to the coordinates supplied by Colonel Oliver, sir." 

"You called me up here to tell me that?" 

(The man is *way* too tense!) "No. Captain, I don't like the look of the area. I've got a bad feelin'. . ." 

The kid's words voiced his own thoughts, but still he found himself asking, "A bad. . .and this feelin', Chief, it's based on what life experience?" 

The kid turned red. "I don't know, she's ridin' awful rough, Cap. That and," he pointed out the windshield at the surrounding terrain, "this. . ." 

Ellison cut him off. "You're driving nearly five ton of metal and machine, Walker. It doesn't handle like a Porsche. And how many times have you been in this jungle? One vine pretty much looks like another to you!" Turbulence momentarily interrupted his tirade, throwing him up against the back of the co-pilot's seat. "You told the Colonel you could fly this bird!" 

"I can, Cap." The kid fought the controls a moment, the ship bucking violently before he brought it under control. "Something's wrong." 

"Wrong? Define 'wrong', Chief." 

Walker looked uncomfortable. "I don't know." 

(Patience!,) Ellison admonished himself. "You need to give me something to go on, Walker. Something solid! You been relatively free with your mouth so far. Don't go dumb on me now! What do your instruments say?" 

The kid scanned the forward panel. "Nothin'. Everything reads normal." 

"Everything reads normal, but. . ." The captain prompted. 

"I don't know." Was the helpless reply. 

(So much for patience!) "Sure it's not just a case of nerves, Chief? First mission jitters? Sure you're not just trying too hard? Seeing things that aren't there?" 

The UH-1N Huey sputtered, jumping like a toy in a child's hand, then leveled off, her engine noise smoothing out as well. 

Walker stared helplessly at the instrument panel for a second before he gave his captain an embarrassed, half smile of apology. "Glitch?" He offered sheepishly. 

Jim snorted, "I got your glitch, kid!," turned, "You call me up here again for this crap and I don't have to tell you what I'm going to so with that stick!," and walked away. 

"What did he want?" J.D. asked as Ellison came out of the cockpit hatchway and pushed angrily by him. 

"His diaper changed." Ellison grumbled as he stalked by J.D., his second's laughter following him to the back of the chopper.   
  


* * *

Sixteen kliks from their target destination, the Huey lurched and rumbled again, this time listing severely to her port side. 

Sam "Scout" Deevers, the Panthers' point man, had been sitting by the open cargo door. He lost his balance and before anybody had a chance to grab him, fell to his death in the unforgiving darkness beneath them. 

"Cap!" Walker screamed, the panic clear in his voice. 

"Secure that door!" Ellison bellowed at his men as he raced to the cockpit. "Walker! Talk to me, Chief. What the *hell's* going on!" 

"I don't know. . ." 

"You say that to me again, kid, and I'm gonna bounce your butt through the windshield. Give me answers, and give them to me fast!" 

"I think we've been hit, but there was nothing on the radar. Cap, the instruments all read in the ready, but she's buckin' like a Brahman and we're losin' altitude, fast!" 

"Where are we?" 

"Near as I can figure from the angle of the sun, about 10 kliks north of where we oughta be." 

Jim stared hard out the window. "That puts us in hostile territory, Chief! How'd that happen?" 

"I don't. . ." the kid stopped, looking up hastily as he remembered the captain's threat earlier. "I followed the information Colonel Oliver gave us at the hangar. I did everything he said!" 

A ball of fire blossomed off their starboard side. Ellison threw himself in the copilot's seat grabbing at the controls. "Can you land this crate?" 

"In that jungle, in the dark, flyin' blind with someone lobbing missiles at us?" The Indian gave him a shaky, hopeless, half-smile. "Sure, no problem." 

He returned what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Top of your class, Chief? Remember? This's a piece of cake for you." 

"Yeah, cake." Walker grumbled as he flicked a switch and pulled hard on the stick. "Never did like sweets, Cap." 

Ellison gripped the kid's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Do your best, Walker." 

There was a loud whistle, then a grinding sound and fire ignited from the rudder. The kid was fighting the controls with all his strength as they began to drop like a stone from the sky. 

"No!" He shrieked then flicked another switch and began screaming into his headset. "Mayday! Mayday! This is Tango Alpha Charlie 961!" 

"Forget it, kid." Jim whispered as he heard the roar of the fire and the screech of metal against metal. Another fireball glowed aft. 

"But we're in trouble! They need to know where we are!" 

"I said forget it." The sound around him was deafening. "*We* don't know where we are. That was probably the idea. I don't think anybody's listening anyway." Then there was only darkness.   
  


* * *

He sat straight up. Darkness surrounded him. Total darkness. Inky blackness. Complete and utter silence. Like a tomb. Still, as death. He couldn't even hear his own heart beating. Was he even breathing? From somewhere far away he heard Blair's voice screaming in pain and agony. Was he dreaming? Was it real? 

He tried to open his eyes, move his arms. Blair needed him. He was calling his name repeatedly, but he couldn't wake up! 

*Blair!* 

"Jim?" A soft voice called to him from the gloom. "Jim, can you hear me?" 

He thought he saw, in the distance, the flame from a solitary candle flickering like a tiny beacon. 

"Jim?" The voice still soft, but now taking on a more anxious quality. 

Now the light grew brighter, more insistent, and he followed that golden glow. 

"Jim?" 

He opened his eyes, Blair was sitting next to him on the bed, as close as he could be without touching him. "Chief?" For a moment, before him, he saw another face. Darker, harsher angles and planes, just as young, just as fear-filled. Then he blinked and it was gone. Anderson. . . 

Blair smiled, relief clearly showing on his face. "That was some nightmare, babe, you tossed me right out of bed." 

Jim raised a shaky hand to cup his bedmate's face. "Did I hurt you?" 

"Dropped me on my butt." He smiled, wickedly. "Want to kiss it and make it better?" 

Jim pulled Blair hard up against his chest and wrapped his arms tightly around him. "How can you joke about it?" 

Blair hugged him back just as fiercely. They sat there rocking each other in the desperate embrace. 

"Maybe. . ." Jim began, his voice a harsh sound against the stillness. ". . .you should go back to sleeping in your own bed, until things quiet down." 

"No way, man! This *is* my own bed!" Blair sat back so he could look into Jim's face. He shook his head. "You promised I could turn that room into an office." 

"It's not safe to sleep with me." 

"That depends on how you define 'safe'." He smiled impishly. 

Jim only frowned at him. "I'm serious." 

"And so am I. Don't talk stupid, Jim! You think I'm going to let a few bad dreams run me off? Here is where I want to be, I'm staying!" He kissed him softly. "Hard as I worked to get in the big bed, you can't get rid of me that easily." Then smiled again, reassuringly. 

Jim hugged him to his chest again. "I could've hurt you!" 

"I know better than to touch you to wake you up from a dream that intense. And if you're so worried about my butt being sore, remember that next time I make you mad enough to use it for target practice!" 

Ellison smiled against the silky nest of Blair's hair. "With a track record like yours, I can't make any promises." 

Blair sighed dramatically. "I was afraid of that." 

Jim slowly lay back down, pulling Blair along, draping him across his chest like a soft, warm blanket. 

"Want to talk about it?" Rubbing his cheek against the firm, smooth muscle before settling in comfortably. 

Jim hugged him tighter. "The crash. . .it was about the crash." 

"The one in the jungle?" 

He nodded. "But. . ." he paused, "It's all. . .blurry. Like looking through water. When I try to pull the images into focus, they just dissipate, like so much smoke." 

"Do you remember anything at all?" 

"Anderson. A kid named Anderson Walker was the pilot. I hadn't thought about him in a long time. When we first met, I don't know, there was something, I don't know how to explain it." 

"You liked him?" 

"He was a pain-in-the-ass, hardheaded, smart-mouthed know-it-all. He told me I was tense, offered to show me how to relax with some spiritual nonsense his grandma shaman taught him." Jim chuckled. "Or something like that. Now that I think of it, it kind of reminds me a lot of you." 

Blair poked him hard in the ribs and Jim gave an exaggerated grunt. "So that means you did like him." 

"I didn't have much of a chance to, Chief. It was his first and last mission." Jim hugged him tightly. "Damn, it was such a waste!" 

"You remember anything else about your dream?" Blair asked softly as he tried to stroke away the tension in his lover's arm. 

Jim tangled his fingers in Blair's hair and idly stroked his scalp in an answering caress. "The sound. The sounds she made going down." He paused again, his eyes focused on some inner vision. "It was like a scream." He blinked away the tears in his eyes. The memory fading, tucked deep within his subconscious, but the pain around his heart still real.   
  


* * *

After that last nightmare, it seemed like the bad dreams tapered off. Maybe that encounter with the Colonel had triggered them. Now they'd run their course. Jim was resting easier, but Blair still awakened several times during the night either from Jim's movement or a sound he made. Nothing Jim said could reassure him everything was all right. 

Soon, lack of sleep, tension and everyday demands of teaching began to take their toll on his Guide. He became jittery and irritable, resisting Jim's efforts to comfort him. Finally, Blair gave up all pretense of trying to sleep through the night. He would wait until his partner fell asleep to creep downstairs and work until just before the alarm went off then crawled back in the bed and pretend to be asleep. It worked, for a little while. . . 

"Blair?" Jim came downstairs in the middle of the night to find his partner sitting at the kitchen table, typing on his laptop. 

He looked up, taking off his glasses. "Hey, man, I didn't mean to wake you." 

"When did you get up?" 

"Just a minute ago. . ." 

Jim wasn't buying it for one minute. "Try again!" 

"Okay, I've been up for a while, but it was just this once." 

"Stop it, Chief! You don't think I felt you get out of bed, this time and all the others? You've slept, what, six hours in the past four days?" 

He put his glasses back on, in a dismissive gesture, and went back to entering data in to the laptop. "Exams, man, papers. Teacher stuff. I gotta make a living." 

"You've been worrying about me. When was the last time you slept all night, lover? You look dead on your feet." 

"I'm fine." 

Jim snorted. "And I'm a duck." 

Blair took off his glasses and looked up to smirk at him. 

"Listen, why don't I take the couch tonight, let you have the bed all to yourself?" 

"So that means you're tired of sleeping with me?" 

Jim sighed. "Follow the road here, professor. I'm the reason you can't rest! I'm trying to offer you a good night's sleep. You're exhausted." 

Blair put his glasses on again and went back to typing. "I'm *tired*. I haven't been *exhausted* for about a week now." He murmured under his breath, knowing his Sentinel could still hear. 

Jim startled. It wasn't hard to get the drift of his guide's meaning. The dig was succinct and to the point. Had it been that long? The two of them had been so drained from fighting their inner demons. . . Damn! No wonder they were both so tense. 

Blair glanced up as Jim went back up the stairs. That was too easy. He'd expected more of a fight, some kind of a lecture, more resistance, a little brute force. Oh, well. Then he returned to typing his exam.   
  


* * *

"You about done?" 

Blair looked up, refocusing his attention on his lover. He glanced over at the clock, an hour had passed. He'd just completed typing the exam and was just finishing a paper he was presenting. Sandburg hit the save key. "I can stop. What's up?" 

"Come in the bathroom and find out." 

Blair gave him a puzzled frown, but put the laptop aside and followed. 

The tub was full of hot water. His favorite scent rising on the steam to fill the air. There were candles everywhere lighting up the room. His relaxation CD was on the player. The volume on low. The chant flowing softly in the space around them. 

"What's all this?" 

Jim's smile sent shivers down his spine. "Seduction." He whispered as he motioned Blair to him. 

He stepped closer. "What?" 

"Well, you've been taking such good care of me lately, even with me shamelessly neglecting you, I thought it was time I took good care of you." 

Sandburg's look of confusion changed to one of indulgent amusement. "So, you're going to *bathe* me?" 

The Sentinel gathered the front of Blair's shirt in his fist and pulled him even closer. He leaned down and captured his lips in a mind-numbing kiss. When they parted, he pulled Blair's shirt over his head and tossed it carelessly aside. "You want to just go with me on this, lover?" 

He had to giggle. "Jim, I haven't been bathed since I was a kid." 

"Just let me do this for you," he began unbuckling his belt. "OK?" 

Now he was nearly helpless with laughter. "But a *bath*?" 

"Among other things." He whispered against his neck as he placed a kiss there. 

The laughter stopped immediately, replaced by a look of anticipation. "What things?" 

Jim slid the pants and underwear off Blair's hips, they fell to the floor in a heap and he stepped out of them. He pressed a warm kiss to the side of his neck, just below his ear. "It'll take all night to find out. You game?" 

"Hmm." Blair moved his lips, blindly seeking another kiss. "Game, match, point, man. Anything, I'm yours." 

Jim lifted him off his feet and placed him in the tub. The water was hot, like he loved it. Blair sank down into its soothing depths and sighed. 

"Want to just soak there? I'll be back in a minute." 

He opened one eye. "Where're you going?" 

"I have a few things to do. I'll be right back." 

Blair had nearly drifted off by the time Jim returned. "Ready?" 

How long had he been in there? The water had started to cool. "Sure." 

Jim reached out his hand and drew Blair to his feet, took the washcloth and worked it into a rich lather with the soap. Starting with his face, careful of his eyes, he spread the foam across his skin. Around his neck, down his front to his knees working, quickly and efficiently to clean him off. Now he turned him around and washed off the back. Swiftly rinsing him. 

"I thought this was seduction?" Blair asked as Jim lifted him from the water placing his feet on the floor, disappointed that the bath hadn't turned into play. 

"No, this was a bath." He pulled the plug and held out a large fluffy towel that he quickly wrapped around Blair and dried him off in brisk strokes. 

"You promised seduction." His bottom lip creeping out into the adorable pout Jim could seldom resist. 

Jim raised Blair's arms over his head as he dried down his sides and back. "And I *do* keep my promises." 

"So, when's the seduction?" 

"Anxious, aren't we?" 

"If I answer yes, does that start the seduction?" 

"It might, imp!," Jim laughed as he wrapped him in one of his terry cloth robes. "But we aren't electrical appliances, you know. I don't come with an on/off switch." 

"Yes!" He threw his arms around Jim's neck, covering his face with tiny kisses. "Yes! Yes!" 

"OK, OK, I hear you!" He handed him a glass of wine. "Here! Start with this." 

Blair reluctantly released his captive, taking the glass from his hand. "What, no beer?" 

Jim gave him an exasperated look. "How bout you give this seduction a chance?" 

"But you don't have to get me drunk, Big Guy, you can have your way with me right now. How more willing do you need me to be?" 

"Want me to try a little target practice about now?" He swatted at his bottom. 

Blair laughed, as he danced out of reach. "Maybe you need to look up the word seduction in the dictionary, Detective Ellison." He said as he followed Jim back in to the bedroom. He laughed again at the look Jim gave him, careful to stay just out of reach. 

Blair stopped. The bed had been made with fresh sheets. There were several large pillows in the center forming a platform. 

"I'm almost afraid to ask what you're up to." Blair said as he took a sip of wine. 

"I need you to lie here." He indicated the pillows on the bed. "I'm going to give you a massage." 

Blair took another sip from the glass in his hand. "*You* massage *me* for a change? Did you hit your head?" 

"Just get your butt on your back in that bed, brat, before I forget the seduction part and slip into corporal mode." 

Blair threw back the rest of his wine and set the glass on the nightstand. "I just love it when you talk stern to me." 

The Sentinel filled the well of his left hand with warmed oil and began slowly smoothing his cherished captive's skin with his thumbs. He traced the contours of Blair's face. Delicately across his forehead smoothing out the frown lines there, over his cheekbones and the sharp bridge of his nose, he stopped at the soft fullness of his lips, running the heavy pad of his thumb back and forth across the softness there. A sliver of moist pink darted out and flickered across his skin sending a shiver through him and momentarily making him forget just who was seducing whom. Jim couldn't resist the temptation the full lushness of his companion's lips conveyed, and placed a soft kiss there. Immediately the lips opened like abundant moonlight in the darkness, inviting consummate exploration of the wet warmth. He lingered until they were both light-headed and breathless. Then, he moved on with a sigh. 

A quick kiss on his chin then hands moved on to his neck. Thumbs at the base of his skull applying gentle pressure in small rotating circles. Blair rumbled and purred like a cat. Jim knew what that meant. His fingers began combing through the fullness of his hair, still damp and curling from the bath. Jim loved playing in his hair as much as Blair loved Jim's hands there. He lingered, feeling the silken strains flow through his fingers. Curls as mischievous as their owner, capturing, wrapping his hands in their silken softness begging for play. Jim smiled. They had time. He could stay and play awhile. 

Blair's lashes were dark, half-moons against the flush of his cheeks. As Jim's stroke deepened, he sighed a heartfelt, "Oh, Jim," then breathed out heavily. 

"Like that?" 

"You know I do, don't stop." 

He laughed as Blair arched into his touch. 

"More." He demanded brazenly. 

He smiled. "Greedy." 

"For you, yes. I'll never get enough of you touching me." 

Jim traced his skull with his fingertips up to his crown. Rotating with his thumbs at his fontanelle. Gently, he took his Guide's head in his hands. Push in, pull out, turn left, right, his hearing tuned to each vertebra as it creaked and popped under his ministrations. Then his fingers danced across Blair's scalp again, can't forget his ears. He traced the delicate shell with his fingertips and pinched the lobes gently, careful of the one with the rings, then back down the neck to the shoulders. 

Down each arm to the hands. Beautiful hands. Long, slender, artist's fingers, another thing The Sentinel would always love. He pulled each digit, oil-slick skin gliding over muscle, bone. Rotate the wrist in a circle, Blair's palm to his palm, push, his hand atop Blair's hand, push. Succumbing to the temptation, Jim took each appendage in his mouth and suckled hard just to see Blair squirm. 

On to his chest. Fingertips circle breast, pinch nipples gently. No need for much pressure, so sensitive now they react to the slightest touch. Jim watched as they drew into tiny nubs, so alluring, enticing, like his lips, he had to taste. He placed his mouth over it, not touching the skin, just warm, moist air expelled in a puff of breath. Blair gasped and bucked against the bed. A flick with just the tip of his tongue, a taste. Mmmm, the left one, the one over the heart, is sweeter. Another taste to verify that observation. He rolled it off his tongue and pulled with gentle suction, now the right, same treatment. Yes, in comparison, the right one's more tart. Jim toyed with them until Blair's purrs became whimpers. 

Tickling lightly down the ribs, over the stomach. He leans forward to lap at the deep well of his navel. Blair jumped. Jim smiled with devilish intent, reveling in his role as torturer/seducer. His thumbs followed the dark line of hair downward. 

"Hmmm, what have we here?" 

The Guide moaned inefficiently as Jim stroked the erect monument to his efforts indulgently, with just the tips of two fingers and his thumb. Closing off all senses but the one, he petted it, feeling the sleek tenacity of the muscle throbbing there. Kissing the redden tip fondly, swirling his tongue around the crown several times before moving on. 

Eliciting a disappointed groan from his beloved. 

Stroking up the inside his thighs, Jim cupped the heavy sac at the apex of his thighs in the palm of his hand. They need massage too, don't they? Blair's wild now, straining to bring his cock into Jim's hand before he moved on. Too late. His cock jumps, desperately trying to attract his attention. Jim took pity and petted it again, only with his fingertips; gently placing a liquid kiss on the head in farewell, a soft promise, as he moved down Blair's legs to his feet. 

"Pleaseohpleaseohplease," he breathed the words softly, but his entreaty goes unheeded. 

Jim gently manipulated heel, arch, the ball of Blair's feet. Each toe received the same treatment as the fingers, rubbing, gently, pulling, right foot, left foot. Rotating them, in a circle, clockwise, counterclockwise. Then he kissed them goodbye. "Turn over." He commanded softly. 

"No, man, don't leave me this way," he says, not too proud to whine. 

"I still have the back to do, Chief. Over." 

"Come on, Big Guy. . ." Blair pleaded, shifting his hips invitingly. 

He turned his face toward his Sentinel. Those eyes conveyed a look too lush to be contrived, the blue deep enough to drown in. Jim felt himself weakening so he stopped the plea with his lips. His tongue, a massage of its own. 

While Blair was distracted, he put him on his stomach and swatted the firm roundness of his bottom with a stinging slap. 

"Ow, Jim, that hurt!" Blair moaned as he rubbed at the injured area. 

"Then behave. You know the rules. No coercion." 

"A guy can try." He pouts then turns his face back into the pillow. 

Jim batted his hands away. "Keep it up and you'll spend the next three days teaching your class standing up, again." 

"Oh, man!," Blair felt a tingle down his spine in reaction to the promise, remembering. 

Jim soothed the reddening mark. 

"Mmmm." 

"Yeah, I know what you want." His hand moved up to Blair's shoulder, kneading the flesh there like fresh dough. Moving downward, he squeezes ripe cheeks, parting them to tease the rosy puckered opening hidden there with his tongue. 

"Oh!" Blair's body jerked as he clutched the sheets, straining to meet the ecstasy of that tongue, but Jim had already moved on to the back of his thighs and his calves. Then Blair felt his hands leave him. ' Blair moaned to himself as he felt the bed dip and Jim move away. 

When Jim returned, Blair had hauled himself into a kneeling position on the bed and watched as he pulled the straight- backed chair until its front legs were resting on either side of one corner. He sat, straddling it, and patted his thighs. "Come here." His voice deep and low. 

Blair shook his head slowly. "Awww, man," He whispered. "No!" 

"No?" Jim's lips curled into a predatory smile. "Sure you don't want to rethink that answer, Chief?" 

"Come on, Big Guy." Blair whined as he shimmied back farther in the bed. 

Now Jim's face lit with a wry smile. "You need this. Isn't it always good? It'll be even better this time, I promise." 

"That's not what I'm worried about." Blair shook his head again. "You said you'd just do this on the weekends. I can't get up in the morning, Jim!" 

"So, you'll be late for a class. I'll write you a note." 

"And say what? I blew my lover's brains full of fluff last night, so he had little trouble dragging his butt out of bed to go to work?" 

Jim's smile widened. "How bout I found a way to help him get a full night's sleep?" 

"That isn't sleep, that's coma." 

"It's totally relaxed and restful sleep." 

"I feel helpless." 

"And you don't trust me enough to be a little helpless?" 

"It's way too intense!" 

"You love it." 

"Why doesn't anything I do make you feel that way?" 

"Everything you do makes me feel that way!" 

"But, least you stay cognizant." 

"Maybe I just hide it better than you." 

Blair yawned. "The massage helped. If I just lie quietly for a while, I'll drift off to sleep. . .eventually." 

Jim shook his head. "You can't stay still two seconds before that analytical mind of yours'll take over. You'll wait until I fall asleep and try to sneak back downstairs. At least this way I'll know you'll sleep through the night." 

"No, Jim." 

"Yes, Blair." He patted his thighs again. "Don't make me come after you." The tone of his voice conveying his determination. 

Blair swallowed hard, his mental wheels turning. Then an impish smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he slid to his hands and knees and crawled toward Ellison, eyes soft and seductive. 

When he'd gotten within reach Jim grabbed him by the forearms and pulled him onto his lap. "And, by the way, I'm on to your little trick." 

Startled to find himself nose to nose with his Sentinel, Blair blinked. "What?" 

"It won't work, Chief, not this time anyway. This is my seduction." 

"Jim..." 

"You know, I love you so much," he whispered against Blair's lips before he took his mouth: hard and possessive, like Blair liked it, soft and sensuous, like he liked it, then intense and thorough to satisfy both of them. 

Blair snaked his arms around Jim's neck, deepening the kiss, as he tried to bring his legs to lock around Jim's hips. He was almost successful when he felt Jim's grip shift from his waist to his knees. 

The kiss ended, the Sentinel smiling into his Guide's face. "Ah Ah Ah!" 

"Jim. . ." his voice not quite a whine as he squirmed to get away. 

With another effortless flick of his wrists, Jim had him on his stomach again. 

"You want to wrap your legs around me, do it this way." 

Blair buried his face in the bed sheets as Jim pulled his legs out and around his waist, his knees resting near Ellison's hips on the seat of the chair. 

"Comfy?" 

Blair didn't have to see the wicked smile on his lover's face to know it was solidly in place. Control was Jim's element, and he was riding high tide now. He wiggled his hips and received another swat on his bottom for his efforts, this one not sharp enough to hurt, just warn. He stilled immediately. 

The grad student both loved and hated this position. Loved it because of the wild delights and sensuous overload achieved. He hated it for the same reasons. Jim had access to every part of him, a fact that he took complete advantage of, and he always took his own sweet time and drove him into complete madness before releasing him, leaving him sated and exhausted. 

Sandburg felt a soothing caress on both reddening hand prints on his bottom. "Mmmm." He fought the urge to wiggle closer to that caress. 

"Good?" The caress moved back and forth across the cheeks of his ass several times and then down his thighs. 

"Yes," he whispered, longing to shift his hips into that caress, but not daring to. "Please, Jim." He said softly. 

Ellison chuckled, he knew his lover so well, then nudged his knees farther apart. Still, gently stroking the firm, trembling flesh. 

"Jim." This was a soft spoken appeal. 

"Shhhh, stay still." The touch reached at the back of his knees stroking sensuously over the pulse fluttering wildly there, around to the insides of his legs and up, teasingly close to his anus, achingly slow back over and down to the flesh of his perineum. 

Blair jumped, his muscles dancing in eager anticipation. Then he moaned in disappointment because Jim's fingers moved on. His lover's hands touched him everywhere, except the two places he needed them to be. "Please, Jim." he whimpered. "Don't tease me." 

"But I like to tease you. Just like you like teasing me." Stroking gently over the perineum to tease his fingertip to his anus, then back down to tickle his scrotum sack. 

"Let me move then!" 

"OK, you can move your head and hands, but that's all." 

Blair groaned, he had hoped for hips. His erection hung painfully hard in the small space between the bed and his lover's warm thighs. "Mmmmm." He moaned pitifully as he struggled to keep from straining toward the promise of that heat. 

Jim's fingers strayed close to his testicles again. Blair groaned again, his time so piteously Jim had mercy on him and took one in his hand. It felt fever hot to his touch as he rolled it firmly between fingers. 

Blair buried his face in the mattress while gripping the covers tightly with his fists to keep from screaming. It seemed every nerve ending just beneath the surface of his skin had become frenzied. 

Jim took his shaft in a firm grip with his free hand and began to stroke, long, slow strokes from base to swollen, weeping tip. Spreading the moisture with his fingers, teasing the tiny opening, coaxing more fluid from him, then using it to ease his efforts. Still massaging his balls with the other, he went back to stroking. The overload of sensations had taken him to the edge of a precipice, now he was dangling helplessly over the chasm suspended over a bottomless pit of pleasure. Waiting just to reach. . . almost there. . . 

Suddenly, the Sentinel took his hands away. 

"No, Jim!," too far into it to let him stop now. 

"Shhh, Chief, it's all right. It isn't over." 

Blair felt Jim shift slightly to the left, and his heart fluttered in anticipation, his mind taking up the chant (pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease!) since his voice refused to function properly. There was movement again. Blair knew what was coming, then feared it was *not coming*, then wished it would come faster. . .Finally, he felt the coolness of a gelled finger against the heat of his throbbing opening. 

"You can move your hips now." 

With a strangled cry of joy Blair thrust back almost violently. Jim slid his finger in, circling slowly, seeking, until he found his mate's prostate. Concentrating his attention there until he felt Blair's limbs begin to tremble and he could hear his muffled sobs for release clearly, even through the tangled bedclothes pressed tightly against his face. Just when whimpers changed to the soft mewl/hiccuping that precluded tears, Jim pushed back from the mattress slightly so he could close his thighs around Blair's engorged penis. 

"Oh, shit!" A grunt of surprise against the sudden, encompassing warmth and pressure. "Oh, fuck!" An ecstatic sigh of pleasure as Jim inserted two fingers and began the process all over. "Uhhhhh," Blair moaned as his hips began to move in answer to the rhythm. 

Ellison smiled as he began to massage his balls with one hand, still manipulating his prostate with the other. By this time, Blair was bucking wildly, out of control. 

He leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "Almost there, Chief?" 

"Three times already!," his voice rose and cracked as he grated out each word, "Let me cum!" 

"Only three?" Jim smiled as he sat back. "I must be losing my touch." 

Blair groaned in sweet agony. His lover was in fine form tonight! If he kept this up, it'd kill him for sure. "I want you inside me, man!" 

"Not yet." He pushed his fingers in deeper, stroked harder, faster. 

"I know you're hard as a rock, Jim!" Blair panted. "You can't say that you're not!" He raved. "Come on, lover! I *need* it! You *need* it! Help us both out!" He whined. "You're driving me insane! Don't *do* this to me! Ohhh!" He squealed as Jim picked up the pace. 

The man was a wizard with his hands! He stirred him like the potion in a hot cauldron, the incantation was blessed and every inch of him alive and on FIRE! Burning hotter by the second. Any minute he knew he'd be incinerated to ash in a burst of pyrotechnic artistry! NO MORE! He saw his climax like a red dwarf star blazing hot in the distance. As he soared closer, Jim would alter his universe with his hands and move it farther away. 

Blair tried to pull away, reposition himself, but Jim was quicker. Jim shifted the pressure and once again the temperature of his body soared. He couldn't take any more! He was almost there for the fourth time! He shifted the focus, desperate to reach his goal this time. "I want you inside me!" He begged again, his voice becoming hoarse with his exertions. 

"I am inside you." Jim said softly, his hand never still. He increased the motion of his fingers as he leaned forward to nip at the succulent flesh before him. 

Moving away just in time as Blair cried out in frustration and rammed his hips back violently, trying to get them in deeper while bucking against the friction and pressure of Jim's thighs. It was NOT enough! Damn it, he felt his reason slipping away! MORE! Something MORE! *DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!* 

Blair could almost see his sanity flowing like water through a sieve. "At least kiss me!" 

"I'll kiss you all you want, wherever you want. . .you know what to do." 

"What! What do you want? Tell me what you want me to do!" 

Jim increased the pressure of his thighs. "Just let go and come apart for me, love. Come on, I want to see you shatter into a million tiny pieces. Don't be afraid, my hands are here. I'll catch you. . ." 

Blair struggled to comply. "Help me, man! Do something else! This isn't enough!" 

"Sorry, Chief, you're controlling all this. I'm just a helpless observer." He laughed softly at the flush creeping up his lover's back. He was completely, totally out of control, now. 

"No fair, man!" Blair clawed at the bedclothes, trying to twist his body back into the sensations. "Oh! I hate when you do this!" 

"Then I'll stop." He said calmly, but didn't, he knew what came next. 

"Damn it, JIM!" Blair pounded his fist dismally on the bed as he thought (I'm gonna die!) 

"You want me to stop?" 

"What?! You can't be serious! I'll kill you in your sleep, man!" 

He tightened his thighs again as he pushed three fingers inside. 

Blair threw his head back, arching into a bow. "Oh . . . Oh . . . Oh . . . Jim!" 

Jim smiled as Blair's hips bucked back off the bed, then down hard. His heart mate was beyond words now, his voice a low, animal-like growl of passion. He renewed his efforts by pressing down and massaging in a circular, stirring motion. It didn't take long. Blair tumbled over the edge of the chasm and came with a wanton shout. 

Then, just as heart had reached its highest rhythm, before his lover could draw another breath, Jim flowed to his feet as he removed his fingers, and slid himself smoothly into the center of Blair's heat. 

Blair lunged forward on the bed with a screech. The abruptness of the intrusion catching him totally off guard. He recovered quickly, being filled to capacity with the hot, rock-hard mass of flesh felt so. . .damn. . .good! "Dammit, Jim!" Blair hissed, surging back to meet his thrust. "Ssssst, oh! Shit!" 

Jim buried himself to the hilt, then pulled back until only the tip remained inside his lover. 

"Noooo!" Blair wailed and undulated back farther. 

Jim stood still then, letting his Guide do all the work. 

"Jim!" He clutched frantically behind himself in a desperate attempt to urge Jim into motion. "You're killing me, man!" 

The Sentinel ran a soothing hand up and down his back then across his flank, but otherwise remained quiet and frozen in place. 

Blair whimpered as he frantically tried to devise a new strategy. Knowing from past experience, Jim wasn't going to help, he began to buck, his thrusting wild, as he brought his own hand underneath his body and stroked his own newly engorged cock. "If you loved me, you'd help me!" He hissed, his fingers tightening around his cock, stroking hard. 

"I love you more than life," Jim whispered. "And I am helping." 

"Damn. . .it. . .I. . .hate. . .when. . .you. . .do. . .this. . .to. . .ME!!!" Each word punctuated by an impatient stroke, a hard, wild thrust back. 

"No, lover," Jim contradicted him gently as he leaned forward and bit down hard on the soft flesh of his neck. "No, you don't." 

With that catalyst, Blair came again, violently in his own hands, the tightening spasm of his sphincter driving Jim over the edge. The Sentinel clasped his lover's hips tight and thrust sharply once, twice, three times into the tight, eager flesh that surrounded him and joined him in bliss. 

"No, I don't." Blair whispered as he collapsed into a mass of disconnected flesh, unjointed bone, and short-circuited neuro pathways. 

Later, again clean and curled around a warm, pliant, totally relaxed Blair, Jim kissed the love bite on his neck. "How do you feel now?" 

"Loved." Blair whispered. Then a soft sigh and level breathing of sleep were all the response Jim received.   
  


* * *

Two weeks had passed and everything settled back to a normal routine. No more nightmares, no more sleepless nights, at least not due to nightmares. . . 

Then, one afternoon, Jim called from the Bull Pen to tell Blair he'd be home late. He said he had to meet a contact. The Sentinel laughed away Blair's concerns. 

"Can't it wait until tomorrow? I don't have classes, I can go with you. . ." 

"No, Chief, I don't need back up. It's a public place, it should be fine. This is strictly routine! You worry too much!" 

"I don't know, Jim. I don't like you going alone." 

"Don't you have some teacher stuff to do?" He waited. 

"Yeah, I guess so." Blair confessed, reluctantly. "Say, I love you." Something made him blurted out loud. 

"I love you, too. Don't wait dinner, OK? See you tonight. I'll bring our favorite kind of ice cream if you let me eat it from my favorite dish." 

Sandburg could almost see the leer through the phone. He hung up quickly, thankful he didn't have to face a room full of students with the raging erection threatening to unzip itself and high color on his face. 

By six, he was nervously pacing the floor. At eight, he was angry the insensitive brick he was in love with hadn't bothered calling and tell him his plans had changed. By ten, he was ready to hock everything in the loft to get enough money to pay for the hit man. By midnight, fear had a solid grip on his heart. At one o'clock, Blair was calling Simon, distraught and inconsolable. He hadn't heard anything from Jim. It wasn't like him not to call after all this time passed! Something had happened. 

Nothing Simon said calmed him until he promised to look into it. Just as he hung up the phone, the report from one of the mounted park officers was placed on his desk by an anxious Joel Taggert.   
  


* * *

Simon stared at the truck, sitting abandoned in the park, which was the pride and joy of Cascade PD's finest detective. An ominous figure was draped in a yellow sheet lying nearby on the pavement. The ME had just finished gathering evidence from the body, now she was taking pictures. They had cordoned off the area and were taking statements from witnesses, such as they were. He silently said a prayer of thanks that Blair was not there just as the Corvair pulled up and the object of his concern bounded out. 

"I called your office, they said you were here. Say, isn't that Jim's truck? Where is he?!" 

Simon intercepted him as he raced around the side of the truck. "Blair. . ." 

He bounced off Simon's body and skidded to a halt. "What? Where's Jim?" 

"Blair. . ." Simon tried to turn him away. "Let's go sit in my car." 

He looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "I don't want to sit in your car. I just got out of *MY* car!" He snatched away. "What's up with you, Simon? I want to know where Jim is." 

"Blair. . ." Simon tried to catch him again but Blair eluded him. 

"Why do you keep saying my name like that?" He pointed. "There's his truck. He wouldn't just abandon it. Where is he? Is he hurt? Is he missing again?" 

He and Simon had been dancing around each other while Blair had bombarded him with questions. Finally Sandburg faked him out and got around him. He nearly tripped over the body at his feet. 

"Simon?" His eyes were wide with fear and apprehension. 

Banks took him gently by the shoulders. "Come back to my car." 

"Simon, who's under the blanket?" 

"Come on, Blair." 

Blair snatched out of his reach. "Who is it, Simon?" 

"Blair, come away." He grasped him firmer this time. 

Those three words, and the look on Banks' face sent an icy shock of fear knifing through him. Blair dove for the yellow sheeting and ripped it away. 

"Sandburg!" Simon raced for him a moment too late. 

All the color drained from Blair's face. 

Simon put his arm around the smaller man and tried to pull him away. "Come away, Sandburg." 

"Jim?" whispered disbelievingly. 

"Sandburg. . ." 

"No." He dug in his heels and refused to budge. 

Simon pulled harder. 

"Jim." Blair snatched out of Simon's grasp, falling to his knees beside the body. "Jim, wake up." He said softly. 

"Blair. . ." 

He shrugged the hands off violently. "Jim, it's too cold to be sleeping on the ground. Wake up." 

"Sandburg. . ." 

"Jim, come on, this is so *not* funny." Blair's voice was rising as he began to shake his Sentinel violently. "Jim, get up!" 

"Taggert, give me a hand here!" 

Blair had handfuls of Jim's shirt and had lifted the body off the ground. "Jim, you're pissin' me off, man!" 

Taggert arrived and he and Banks began to pry Blair's fingers loose from the body. 

"Sandburg, you're gonna hurt yourself!" 

Blair began to fight. "No! He's freezing! We've got to get him warm!" 

"Blair, this isn't gonna do any good! You can't wake him up! Jim's gone!" 

"No! NO!," Blair screamed as he struck out angrily. "Don't say that! He's not! We got to get him warm! This thin blanket isn't enough!" He grabbed Banks by the lapels and turned great tear-filled eyes up at him. "Wake him up, Simon! Please! He's not listening to me! You're his boss, he'll do it, if you tell him to. Tell him to wake up!" 

The pleading quality of his voice broke Simon's heart. He screamed over his shoulder, "I need a paramedic over here!," as they lifted Blair bodily away from Jim's corpse. 

"NO! Let me GO! NO! Jim! JIM! Jim, WAKE UP! Jim, it's Blair! You have to get up!" Then to Simon. "He's not dead! Simon, please! He can't be dead! I would feel it! Check again, Simon! The ME made a mistake! NO! Don't take me away! NO, Simon, I don't want to go! I have to stay with Jim! *NO!* NOOOOOO!!!!" 

The last scream torn from his throat as they stuffed him kicking and struggling into an ambulance, was so full of pain and grief it hardly sounded more animal than human.   
  


* * *

Sitting behind his desk at Cascade PD Major Crimes, Simon Banks had been staring at the empty desk in the Bull Pen for what seemed like hours. Finally he shook himself out of his revelry to open the plain manila envelope a clerk had just delivered. 

(The use of nuclear power is destroying our planet. The corruption of the American government enforced by an equally corrupt police force. These are her SS troops, they inflict the misery of a corrupt system on the innocents. 

A bomb has been planted within your building. In 30 minutes it will be detonated and free the people from your control.) 

There was no signature. 

"Oh, great. The perfect topper to a lousy day." He growled angrily as he reached for the phone to call the bomb squad. 

The entire building had been evacuated and searched. The operation took hours. After a complete and thorough search, Taggert and his team discovered nothing. Banks had just settled back into his office and picked up the phone to call the hospital to check on Blair when Joel knocked on his doorjamb. He seemed uneasy. 

"What is it now?" 

"The morgue just called. It seems they've misplaced Jim's body." 

Banks slammed the phone he was holding back in the cradle. "Misplaced his body. . . are you trying to be funny?" 

Taggert looked hurt. "No, sir." 

"How could they lose a body?" 

"The pathologist said she was setting up to start the autopsy and when she opened the drawer, it was empty." 

"Well, did she check all the drawers?" 

"She says she checked the entire floor. The body's not there. She thinks it could've happened during the evacuation. What would anybody want with Jim's body?" 

(Damn, damn, damn! As if Jim's death wasn't enough to drive the kid over the edge, Blair was really gonna lose it over this!)   
  


* * *

The paint on the large white sign was faded and peeling. In blocked red numbers it displayed the address: 3300 Bancroft. The huge, empty warehouse was set back from the alley of a dead-end street in a run down, crime-ridden part of town. Etched in the stone over the doorway was the name, Olympic Building in Gothic lettering. 

The old structure had a shadowy past. A man had died here eight months or so ago. Then there'd been some other trouble with the police and some other law enforcement agency (acronyms like the CIA and FBI was muttered back and forth). So when the Realtor received a bid from a company as large and powerful as Graft Technologies, money and title changed hands quickly, with very few questions asked. 

On the outside it was crumbling brick and mortar, broken and boarded-up windows. The major difference was inside. The part of the lower level had been turned into a prison, the rest resembled a military communication center. Only a handful of men and women came and went through a secret entrance. With a rise in inner-city crime, unemployment and homelessness, no one cared about another abandoned derelict building. 

At the center of the complex off to the right were lavish, accommodations complete with an extravagant office. 

Alejandro Alves Irizarry looked around the vast richness of his surroundings as he let his body sink into the softness of the large couch against the west wall and waited for his guest to return. 

Irizarry was a self-proclaimed general. His army, under the pretense of pacifying the natives, had seized power of his small province in Peru over twenty years ago. If everything had moved along as planned, within five years he could probably have return to Huancayp as a high ranking government official. He would have emerged a hero, saving his country from the anarchists who were using wholesale drugs and military-backed destruction to gain control of the tiny country. He would have worked with the government to make plans for the future of the world. 

There would have been arguments about who should chair the committee. They would probably have settled on someone safe and controllable, in their eyes. Irizarry smiled knowingly. Someone like him. Not suspecting, of course, that he had been the perpetrator of it all. Soon after that meteoric rise in power, he had met U. S. Army major Norman Oliver. The Major was then involved with numbers running and had a small drug clientele starting on the base he was looking to expand. Irizarry had helped him, providing secret landing fields and staging areas in the jungle, also scores of undercover soldiers from the warlike tribesmen of the north as their secret army. In return, the American made sure that Irizarry's most important export, pure cocaine was secretly flown to the United States and Europe aboard military transport aircraft. 

He reflected on what had been a profitable association for both men. In the beginning. 

Everything had changed when he and Oliver later joined the elite group of military drug dealers who also had contacts in the States. Suddenly his production numbers were too small. His new partners had pushed him for more product, which put a tremendous strain on the warehouses where he manufactured and processed his goods. A small, neatly organized corporation became dangerously overtaxed. It was only a matter of time before a serious mistake was made. 

Initially he had been reluctant to get involved in anything that would take him from his business. But now Irizarry could taste power that was almost his again. As profitable as the drug business was, he missed the excitement of controlling the lives of thousands of men. The aphrodisiac of power and that level of control was a thousand times more stimulating than running a chain of brothels in Arequipa and Chiclayo, his drug business or his protection services. 

Then the entire plan had begun coming apart, in the end blowing up in his face one night nearly 10 years ago and had taken all the light and life from his world. He'd invested a lot of money to make this plan work. Nothing, nothing would stop him now. Now he existed only for one thing. Revenge. 

The thought pleased him. 

The office walls were covered with photographs of tall, stately, military officers in the company of a great number of foreign officials. He studied them for a particular photograph, then found it. The picture was of an Army Special Service Corps. They were in front of an UH-A1 Huey dressed in jungle camouflage. Panther Ops originally consisted of seven men. There were ten men in the photo: the Panther team, Irizarry, a young pilot named Anderson Walker and Colonel Norman Oliver. Each of the two men had an intricate part in Irizarry's initial plan. 

Walker, an unknowing, unwilling participant, had fulfilled his part. His insecurity and uncertainty under fire had helped Colonel Oliver's sabotage of the Huey's flight plan take them into enemy territory. With radar and radio disabled, the Special Forces team didn't hear the warning from the ground to clear their airspace. Perceiving them as a threat to their country's safety, they were immediately fired upon. Panther Ops was supposed to have been destroyed, were destroyed, all but their leader, Jim Ellison. Seriously injured and alone, surrounded by the enemy and native hostiles he had survived in that unexplored stretch of the Peruvian jungle. Survived and thrived for nearly two years. It was a miracle. A quirk of Fate he planned to correct. 

All he had to do now was bide his time. Soon it would've been over. Profits from their drug trade soared. After that it was the same. The American provided warehouse facilities near the Mexican border and received a hefty share of the profits. Soon, they would have both been very wealthy men. Then that fool, Oliver had gotten stupid and greedy. He'd taken off on a project of his own, to kill Ben Chavez, DEA agent who had fingered him to the Kali Cartel in Central America, and opened another can of worms. Now Irizarry had a mess to clean up before he could more on. 

Now Irizarry was saddled with Oliver's associates, Tanya Wilding, Sergeant Harley and Ray Gillespie, his hench men. He hadn't minded when the American had left the day-to-day running of the business to his mistress. The woman had been Oliver's aide, a major in the Army and as ruthless as most men he knew. Gillespie knew how to get the job done and done right. Harley was a waste. 

He was smiling slightly to himself when the outer door opened. 

"We have him." 

Irizarry nodded his head slowly. Keeping the relief at hearing that news from showing on his face. Harley had lost him and had been dealt with in a way to insure there'd be no more mistakes by anyone else. "Good. And soon I will have the pleasure of avenging my son's honor by killing the last man who caused his death. Is he awake?" 

"No. The drug's taking a long time to flush from his system. There's no telling how much that idiot Harley gave him." 

"But he *is* alive?" 

"Yes." 

"Can't you give him something to wake him?" 

"Yes, and risk killing him." 

"No. He has to be awake and conscious. He was their leader. I want him to know his executioner." 

"It'd be easier just to kill him now, pack up and get away from here while we still can. The woman's disappeared. She knows too much. This entire operation's in jeopardy." 

A brief look of annoyance crossed his face. Tanya had fulfilled her obligations. Unfortunately she overheard a conversation between him and Gillespie about her dwindling importance and what they planned to do about it. Dissatisfied with their decision to kill her, she'd fled. As long as she was alive and free, she was a liability. 

"Don't worry, we'll find her. She can't go far, she has no money and no friends. What about the Ranger's partner?" 

"The little hippie geek?" He waved dismissively. "He's no threat." 

Izzary steepled his fingers as he stared up at Gillespie. "Perhaps you're underestimating him." 

"The way he fell apart at the scene, he's probably a heavily sedated vegetable by now." 

"All right, since you feel he's not a threat, your priority is the woman. Find her and dispose of her, now."   
  


* * *

Blair stood on the sidewalk and stared at the tape outline in the grass. He felt empty, lost and empty and angry. Simon had had him dragged bodily from the crime scene to a local hospital and kept sedated. He'd spent the next twenty-four hours drifting in and out of a drug-induced hell. Then another day recovering and trying to convince the doctor he was in control enough to be released on his on recognizance. Simon had assigned an officer to watch him. Blair couldn't convince him to return to the station. Even now, the officer followed his every move at a discreet distance. 

He looked down again at the outline. "Jim," he whispered, "dead. . ." He was *not* dead! (Give it up, Sandburg, there was a body.) But he was his blessed protector, his best friend, his lover, his soul mate! There had been a connection between them that ran deeper than death! NO! Blair could *feel* Jim's heart beating steady, strong like an echo of his own! Even if the *eyes* lie, the heart *knows*! 

Tears trailed down his face. Jim was *NOT* dead! If he let himself believe that, even for a moment, then he would die also. But what to do now? Where to start? 

"Bad place." 

There was a tugging at his sleeve. 

"Bad place. Come away." 

Blair jolted from his revelry to stare down at the tiny figure standing beside him. "Excuse me?" 

Small, raisin eyes in a wizened face stared back up at him. Fluffy white hair peeking from under a torn, dirty knit cap. "Man got hisself kilt here. Bad place. Evils rupt the aura, this place. Make it dark. Make your aura come apart, here." She placed her hand over his heart. "Come away." 

"No, no, its. . ." 

"Bad place! Bad man may come back! Come away!" She was becoming more animated. Pulling harder and the officer was moving to intervene. Frantic to hear more of what she had to day, Blair waved him back. 

"All right! All right." He said soothingly, as he let her drag him away. "I'll come with you." He followed her to a nearby park bench. They sat. "My name's Blair." He waited. "And you are?" 

She hesitated, as if unsure. "Clara." 

"Hi, Clara." He paused. "Clara, you say a man was hurt here by another man." 

Her head bobbed up and down frantically. "Yes! Kilt dead!" 

"How do you know?" 

She hesitated again, twisting nervously on a button from her coat. 

"Clara, please. The man you saw hurt, he's very important to me." 

"Important? Important how? Friend?" 

"Yes, but more than that." 

She looked at closely into Blair's face. "More than friend?" She whispered. 

Blair swallowed. "Yes, much, much more." The tears came back to his eyes. 

"Love?" 

"Yes." 

"Much love." 

"Yes, Clara. Very much love." His voice cracked as he looked down at his hands folded in his lap. Here he was cold and miserable, sitting on a park bench, in the middle of the day, talking to a street person. He should be out looking for a lead. This was ridiculous! 

"Clara knows 'cuz Clara sees." 

Blair looked up. "See? You, you were here?" 

She pointed to a small cluster of trees nearby. "Right there. Your friend. . . big man," she reached high above her head. "Built like statue. Face like stone. Beautiful eyes like sky." 

A sad smile. "Yeah, that's Jim." 

"He waits here long time. Looking." She demonstrated. "Clara asks him for change." She reached into the huge wool coat she wore. "He gave me this." She showed him a fifty-dollar bill. "Made Clara promises use for food. Only food. And warm place." She reached in again and withdrew a card. "Gave Clara this." She showed it to Blair. It was one of Father Reese's cards. He ran a mission in the neighborhood. On the back Jim had written his name. "Said it was safe place. Good place." 

"Yes. Jim met the priest who runs it during an investigation." 

"Clara goes, not far. Wait. Watch. Another man comes. They talk. He put needle in your friend when he looked away. Your friend falls. Man tries to drag him away but police on big horse coming. He runned away." 

"The man, the one who stuck Jim with the needle, did you see his face?" 

"Clara may be old, but her eyes still good." 

"Clara, could you pick this man if I showed you some pictures?" 

She looked at Blair, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Pictures? Where?" 

"If you come with me to the police station. . ." 

"No! No, police!" She got up to leave. 

Blair stood up with her, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Please, Clara! Please! The man who was hurt, the one who gave you the card and the money, he was a policeman. I work for the police. You have nothing to be afraid of. I'll come with you." 

She had stopped struggling. 

"I need to find him, Clara!" Blair gripped her arms tighter as he choked back tears. "I need to know who did this to him and why! And find where they've taken him!"   
  


* * *

Simon was livid. First the bomb threat, then Jim's body disappearing. 

There was a knock on his office door. Blair stuck his head in. 

"Sandburg, what are you doing here? How did you get out of the hospital?" 

"I signed myself out. This last time I looked this was not a fascist state. Simon, I know you're busy, but can you spare someone to help us look through mug books?" 

"Us? Mug books? What for ?" 

"I've got a witness to Jim's. . .I have someone who saw who hurt Jim." 

Simon followed Blair's gaze out to Jim's desk where Clara sat. 

"That's your *witness*? Sandburg, that's Crazy Clara." 

"Crazy Clara?" 

"Yeah." 

"Crazy? You mean she's not reliable?" 

"Only if you're interested in the apprehension of E.T." 

Blair's face fell. 

Just then Clara jumped up from Jim's desk, a sheet of paper in her hand and danced excitedly over to them. "Clara no look at pictures!" 

"Yeah, Clara. That's OK." Blair said sadly. "Look, I'll take you to lunch for your trouble, then we can go to Father Reese's if you like." 

"No, Clara no need pictures!" She shoved the paper under Blair's nose. "Man here!" 

Simon walked over and took the page from her. "Let me see that. This is the man we just fished out of the harbor yesterday." 

"Clara, are you sure?" 

"This man kilt your friend. Clara is sure!"   
  


* * *

Gillespie knocked on the door to the general's office, then opened the door and went in. Irizzary looked up from the papers on his desk. He hesitated. "The two men I hired just called. They lost Tanya," he added apologetically. 

Irizzary slammed his hand on the desk. "Then have them find her. She's liable to contact the authorities just to get back at us. Am I completely surrounded by incompetents? She is just one female! First, you lose the Ranger's body. Then this worthless female! Must everything be done by me? Can I count on no one?! Must I bring someone all the way from Peru to get my orders obeyed?!" 

Gillespie, hard faced, waited for Irizzary to calm down. "No, general. But I think you're wrong about Tanya going to the police. I mean, she's as involved as the rest of us." 

"I'm not talking about the overseas' business," Irizzary growled angrily. "She knows about the Ranger. She's a loose end. This entire mess came about because of a loose end!" 

"By the time she gets someone to help her, it'll be too late." 

"I don't want her talking to anyone about anything. Understood?" 

"Who do you think she would contact?" 

Irizzary shook his head, "I don't know. The FBI. The Pentagon. The CIA. . ." he paused. "The Cascade police." 

"Why would she go to them?" 

"Why not? She has information they want. Information important enough to trade for her life." 

"She couldn't think they'd protect her, not after what she's done." 

"You're not thinking out of desperation, Gillespie. Find her before she pulls this entire operation out from under us before my chore is finished!"   
  


* * *

Tanya Wilder had driven a circuitous route to the outskirts of Cascade, checking through her rear view mirror to make sure no one followed her. They must have been better than she thought. 

She thought she'd lost them, but they'd picked up her trailed somehow and tracked her back here. It was only a matter of time before they found her room. Making a decision, she stopped at a phone booth, then called the police emergency number. 

"Cascade Police Department, how may I direct your call?" 

"Captain Banks." 

"I'm sorry, the Captain is out of his office now" 

"This is important. Do you know where he can be reached?" 

"I sorry, not at the moment, but he'll check in regularly, I can take a message." 

She took a deep breath. "My name is Tanya Wilder. If the doesn't remember that name, tell him I worked with Colonel Oliver. 

"I'm staying at the Cascade Holiday Inn, Room 272. I have information concerning Jim Ellison, but there are two men following me. They haven't found me yet, but they're right outside. I think they plan to kill me, so I don't have much time." Then added a warning, "They're professionals. Tell him to hurry!" She hung up and waited.   
  


* * *

Tanya Wilder was terrified as she peeked from behind the lowered blinds of her second floor Holiday Inn motel room. She couldn't stay here much longer. It had been nearly twenty minutes since she'd called Banks' office. The dark sedan was still there with the two men who had been following her for the past twenty-four hours. 

She wondered why they hadn't attempted to come up and get her. They had to have the rooms narrowed down by now, the hotel was nearly empty. Then she glanced at the driveway and saw the reason. A couple of Cascade police were sitting in their official cars: one near the front gate, the other cruising around the rear. She looked at her hand. It was shaking. 

Watching from the corner of the window, she saw the police car move slowly toward the parked car. Stopping a few feet away, the officer got out and stood staring from behind his opened door. 

"Get out of the car," he shouted as he pointed his gun at the men. It was Simon Banks.   
  


* * *

"Detective James Ellison. Ex-Ranger, Panther Operations Division. Entire team lost in the jungles of Peru when their helicopter was shot down by an unknown aggressor. All hands lost. What a pity." 

A little man with dark eyes and a small moustache, had been standing there when Jim opened his eyes. He was lying on a damp concrete floor. His hands were cuffed behind his back. His head hurt like hell and he was in a cage made of floor to ceiling half- inch steel bars. 

"Did you discover Colonel Oliver's part in that? Was that why you killed him?" 

"It was an accident." He said, rolling to his knees. "He fell." 

"Is that what it says in the police report?" 

"That's what happened." Jim shook his head to clear it then fell back against the concrete bricks of the wall behind him as he was hit with a wave of nausea and dizziness. "How do you know so much about me?" He asked between great gulps of air. "Who are you?" 

"My name is Irizzary. Alejandro Irizzary. Does that mean anything to you?" 

His vision was beginning to clear. "Should it? What's this all about, Irizzary? Where am I?" 

"My son. This is about my son." 

"What about him?" 

"You are here to atone for your part in his murder." 

"Murder?" 

He was pacing again. "His name was Francesco. He was only twenty-two." 

"And you think I killed him?" 

Irizarry stopped in front of the cage. "Oh, I know you did. Ten years ago." 

"Ten years ago I was in the military." Jim licked his dry lips with a slightly swollen tongue. What had they given him? 

"Ten years ago you were in command of one of your country's secret death squadrons." 

"If your son was killed by a member of my team it was in the line of duty and he was involved in some type of illegal activity." 

"How noble a rationale, Ranger. Is that how you live with all you've done?" 

"Was he working for you, or on his own?" 

"He was only twenty-two. My only son and heir!" 

"Where'd you have him working, Irizzary? Was he a runner? No, he was your only son, you wouldn't have him deal..." 

Irizzary's face flushed with anger. "How dare you! Francesco was a genius! He had another year at the University to receive his degree in chemistry!" 

"So he was in production." Jim paused. "Wait! Ten years ago. Production. A warehouse in Peru. It exploded because a fire reached a stockpile of chemicals." 

He nodded. "Your team caused that fire." 

"No, we were attacked! That blaze was the result of the gun fire." 

"The men in the warehouse were defending themselves!" 

"They were defending your drugs! If anybody is responsible for Francesco's death, it's you. He died because he was there making drugs for you!" 

Irizarry's eyes went wild. "NO! He died because you murdered him, you and Panther Ops!" 

"I won't take the blame, Irizzary! The truth is, if he hadn't been in that warehouse, he would still be alive." 

Alejandro slammed his fist against the bars. "Shut up!" 

"If anyone's to blame, it's you." 

He pounded the bars again. "I said, shut up! You are the lone survivor. Your death will be your act of contrition for the murder of my son. I thought I killed you all in that crash! Even Holland didn't escape me! I don't know how you survived, but I will correct that mistake, shortly. You will die as my Francesco died, in fire screaming for someone to help you. What do you think, Special Ops Ranger? Is fitting, yes?" 

"I think it's only a matter of time before they find me." 

"Find you?" Irizzary's face showed his amusement. "You believe there is someone looking?" 

"Yes." 

"But everyone thinks you're dead, Ranger." 

"No, they wouldn't believe that." 

"But they do! In fact, I had to steal your body' from the morgue to keep *them* from killing you, or discovering you weren't *really* dead. Whichever one came first." He laughed. "But you will be pleased to know everyone took your passing very hard. Especially your partner. The pretty young man you live with." He made a tsking noise with his tongue. "What a shame! My associate says he was taken to the hospital and put under heavy sedation. They had to remove him forcibly from the scene. Clinging to you body. Calling out your name. It was very touching. Maybe there is something more here than the sharing of rooms, no? " 

His nightmare! Blair calling him, him unable to wake up and help him! 

"For every moment you caused him pain, you'll suffer. That's a promise." 

He nodded. "Yes, more than meets the eyes. A thought... Perhaps I should have Gillespie bring your pretty toy here. We can play with him, too, and let you watch. I know there are tricks he can teach him. Would you like that, Ranger?" 

Jim threw himself against the bars with enough force to rattle the entire cage. "Don't you touch him! Don't! You hear me, Irizzary? Lay a hand on him and I'll kill you!" 

Irizarry had startled, jumping back at Jim's outburst. Shakily, he tried to compose himself as he said, "Enough of this foolishness! Big words from a handcuffed man in a cage! You re going to die, Ranger! How, and if, I play with you before is up to me." 

His laughter still echoed through the room long after he'd gone. 

Sick and weak with fear for Blair, Jim slumped to the floor. He didn't hear Irizarry order him tranquilized again.   
  


* * *

"Reinaldo!" A sharp voice cut through the silence. 

The guard, a thin man with a MAC-10 slung across his shoulder, patrolled the catwalk high above the warehouse floor. He lifted the radio to his mouth. "What is it?" He said harshly. 

"You missed your last check in! The general said every half hour!" 

"There is nothing to report!," he snapped irritably. "There was nothing to report a half hour ago and there will be nothing a half hour from now! We are beneath the ground. No one knows we are here! This is ridiculous!" 

"Don't let the general hear you, Reinaldo! You will end up like the American, Harley!" 

He clicked off angrily. Tired and bored, and so preoccupied with thoughts of finishing this job and enjoying the money, he didn't turn to look behind when Blair slipped up and hit him on the head with the steel pipe. He went down like dead weight. (Well, that gets easier all the time!) He thought, proud of himself. He threw the gun away and moved on. He had 27 minutes to find and rescue his Sentinel.   
  


* * *

"Captain Ellison," a soft voice called to him from the fog of a drug sleep. "You have to wake up now." 

He opened one eye halfway. "What?" 

"Jim! Jim!" An anxious voice called to him in hushed tones. "Have they drugged you, man? Are you zoned? I've been calling you forever!" 

A shadowy figure stood in the dimness just off to his right. Jim opened his eyes wider as he sat up, blinking to clear his vision. "Who's there?' 

"Jim! Quiet!" The figure stepped closer to the circle of light surrounding the cell. 

"Blair? Blair, what are you doing here? How'd you get in? Why did you call me Captain Ellison just now?" 

"Hey, whoa, Big Guy, slow down there. I came to get you out. Captain Ellison? Why would I call you Captain Ellison?" 

"You did, I heard you." 

"Jim, you were dreaming. I didn't call you captain anything! We don't have time to argue about this right now! I had a hard time finding you and we've got about ten more minutes before the guard's check in. Here, turn around, I've got something to pick the lock on those cuffs." 

Jim crawled over to where Blair stood and turned his back, extending his arms toward him. He felt Blair begin to work on the lock with something thin and sharp. 

"Boy, am I glad to find you." Sandburg whispered as he manipulated the pick in the keyhole. "I thought I'd never see you again. I saw your body, Jim! Simon and everybody said you were dead, but I knew, I KNEW!" His hands started to tremble. 

Then they heard voices approaching. 

"Quick, Chief, give me the pick! You find someplace to hide!" 

"But, Jim!" 

"That's not open for discussion, Sandburg! Get your butt behind those crates over there, now!" 

Blair hesitated one second more. "I love you, Jim." He whispered. 

Jim smiled at him. "Don't worry, imp, we'll get out of this, then you can show me how much. Okay?" 

Blair smiled back, "Okay!" Then took off running, making it behind the barrier of the wooden crates just a moment before Irizzary and three guards walked into the room. 

The cocky little man swaggered over to stand in front of the cage. Jim, afraid he might see Blair, or see him working on the cuffs, took a menacing stance. 

"I wouldn't come any closer if I were you," Jim said, very quietly as he worked frantically on the lock. 

"And why not?" 

"Because, when I get my hands on you, I'm going to break you in two." He said softly. 

He laughed. "That is highly unlikely, Mr. Ellison, you see, it is time for you to die." 

"Die, Irizarry? How? Are you going to get one of your hired goons to do it?" 

"No, Ranger, I relied on others before and you survived. This time I will kill you myself." 

"You may find that difficult." 

"As difficult as getting you in that cell?" He laughed. 

"No, a lot more. You had to get somebody to drug me to do that. Despite your best efforts, I'm not drugged now." 

"Enough of this foolishness!" He barked as he signaled to the guards. "Drag him out of there." 

Just as the guards unlocked the door to the cell, all erupted into chaos. Jim had picked the lock on the handcuffs with the instrument and was braced for attack. 

His partner, who had been watching for some call to action, popped up from behind a stack of crates long enough to throw a lid like a frisbee. It caught one guard in the back of the head knocking him out cold. 

Inside the cage, Jim buried his fist solidly in the face of the closest guard, quickly dispatching him. But before Jim could turn around, the second guard was on his back, his arm tight around his neck, choking him. Ellison threw himself backward, slamming them against the bars. The impact loosened the grip on his neck enough to slide free. Turning to face his attacker, he jabbed but his left was blocked by the guard's arm. A counter swing, and the wind was knocked from him to his stomach by the guard's fist, then a right to his jaw that spun him around and collapsed him to one knee, seeing stars. 

The guard, sensing an opportunity, lunged at him, both fists doubled, poised for a hammer blow to the back of his neck. 

At the last moment, Jim sidestepped, then aimed a heavily- booted toe just below the man's kneecap. There was an audible crack. 

Grunting with pain and shock, the guard went down hard on both knees. Ellison braced both hands flat on the floor, levelled himself us and threw a strategically directed kick behind his right ear. The man dropped to the floor. It took Jim a moment to catch his breath before staggering to his feet and toward the open cell door. 

"Ranger." 

Jim had just stepped out into the room when Irizarry his voice stopped him. He had his partner by the hair and was pressing a gun beneath his chin. "I'd consider my next move *very* carefully." 

Jim straightened to his full height. "Don't do this, Irizarry." 

"Do what, Ranger? Use your young friend here as a shield?" 

Jim took a small step forward, he'd smoothly shifted into full Blessed Protector mode. "Take your hands off him." 

"I don't think so. As you can see, he's my safe passage out of here." 

Jim shook his head slowly. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that." 

"You'd risk his life?" 

"You're not going to let him live anyway. Once you're out of here, you'll take great joy in killing him, leaving the body where I can find it knowing it how much it will hurt me." 

Irizarry smiled a cold, hard smile. "True, Ranger. But right now I can't afford that luxury, all I want to do is escape. There will be another time. Perhaps, I could leave him alive. Are you willing to gamble away that chance? What will it be, Ranger?" Irizarry had been dragging Blair toward the elevator while keeping up the exchange. A push of a button, the doors opened and he pulled the grad student inside. 

As the doors closed, Jim leaned down, taking something from one of the men at his feet, then dove for the stairs. 

When the doors had closed, Blair had made a grab for the gun and received a sharp blow to the side of the head for his trouble. The pain had stunned him for a moment, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the floor. "Stupid child!" Irizzary wrapped his fingers tightly in another fistful of hair and brutally hauled him to his feet. "Don't make this more difficult!" 

When they reached the first floor the doors opened again and Alejandro pushed him out into the garage. 

Blair stumbled along with him, wiping the blood from his face. "Let me go." 

"Quiet!" He scanned the area. Everything looked clear. "Well, no Ranger. I must admit, I am surprised. It seems your partner's deserted his pretty toy. Not very loyal, is he? A shame! Perhaps I'll let you live after all. Take you with me. I have a customer, you're a bit older than what he likes, but one look at those eyes, this hair, and he would make an exception . . . for a year or two. Would you like that?" 

Blair renewed his struggles and Irizzary pressed the barrel of the gun deeper under his chin. 

"Or, I could kill you now." 

"Jim won't let you get away with this." 

"Oh, please, little toy! Your lover might have been a highly- trained government assassin ten years ago, but civilization has made him soft. He is a super hero no longer." 

"Oh, I don't know, Irizzary. I think I still look pretty good in a cape and a pair of tights." Jim stepped from behind a black van. "What do you think, partner?" 

Blair breathed a sigh of relief, his smile lighting up the dimness of the garage. "The red and blue ones always made my heart beat faster." 

Jim smiled, nodding his head infinitesimally. "Now, Blair!" 

The instant the grad student heard his name, he crumbled to his knees, that's when Jim exploded into action. Releasing the knife he had concealed behind his back with a proficient snap of his wrist, he sent it toward Irizzary. Expertly thrown, the surgically sharp blade flowed neatly into his chest to the handle. 

Pink froth ran from between his lips as he dropped the gun and tried unsuccessfully to remove the knife and stop the fountain of blood that poured from the gaping wound with his bare hands. It was only seconds before he crumbled to a heap on the garage floor. 

Jim was at his mate's side before the body touched the ground, taking him into his arms. "Are you all right?" He whispered against the matted tangle of his hair. 

Blair nodded weakly, as he tried to keep from looking at Irizzary. 

"Where's Simon?" 

He burrowed deeper into the material of Jim's shirt and shrugged. 

The Sentinel pulled back to look into his face. "Blair?" 

"At the station?" He said meekly. 

Jim blinked wide-eyed at his young lover. "Don't tell me you came here all alone!" 

"OK..." 

Jim shook him hard. "Blair Sandburg..." 

"I left him a note! This place was just a hunch! I didn't want to lead him on a wild goose chase. Suppose I was wrong? Suppose *he* was on a solid lead! He was out on a call but they couldn't reach him right away and we were on the clock, Big Guy! Two heads are better than one and all that! Anyway, I thought I had a better chance alone than waiting around for the Cascade Police's SS squad! I didn't have the authority to call them in, and I couldn't find Joel fast enough..." 

"That's it...Keep talking, Professor." Jim pulled him roughly to his feet. "Dazzle me with bull, so I forget to kill you when we get out of here..." 

Blair smiled, If Jim could joke at a time like this, maybe his Sentinel wasn't TOO mad at him after all. "Jim, buddy, I saved your life! You should be thanking me!" 

Jim snorted. "Well, it rhymes, anyway!" 

Blair threw himself into Jim's tight embrace just as Simon and the calvary arrived.   
  


* * *

He came awake in levels. Each of his senses reaching out one at a time. Feel: Clean, crisp sheets beneath him instead of cold concrete. Smell; The sweet scent of fresh air instead of stale, dank basement, overlaid with more familiar scent. That welcomed scent accompanied by the sound of a heartbeat he knew as well as he knew his own. He could almost taste his presence. . . 

Jim opened his eyes. Blair was perched, in full Lotus, just off to his left on the bed, his gaze steady, his eyes full of love and concern. "Morning." Jim's voice was still rough with sleep. He stretched. 

Oh, how he'd missed the play of those muscles! "Mornin' yourself." Blair smiled. "Hungry?" 

"Yeah, a little. I'll eat something later." He reached out. "You're too far away." 

Blair's smile widened and he crawled forward into Jim's arms. He draped himself across his chest. Pressing his smile to Jim's lips, he flicked them with his tongue and was rewarded with a greeting of Jim's tongue as he opened his mouth, drawing him in. 

Jim's arms engulfed him. "What were you doing just now?" 

"Watching you sleep." Blair kissed him again. 

"Sounds boring." 

"Not to me." 

Jim watched the shadows pass across his lover's face. "It's OK, Chief." 

Blair's eyes glistened with unshed tears. "For a while there, I was afraid I'd never find you." 

Jim smoothed back the errant lock that had escaped from the band that held the ponytail. "Funny, I *never* doubted you would." 

Blair smiled a shaky smile as a tear escaped trailing down his cheek. "If it hadn't been for Clara, I wouldn't've." 

"Who's Clara?" 

"Some homeless lady you gave money to in the park, right before they drugged you. Remember?" 

Jim frowned slightly, as he thought hard. "No, sorry." 

"She saw the whole kidnap thing. Helped me identify your assailant. They found his body floating in the bay. I took her back to the station with me to look at some mug books. She saw his picture on a flyer on your desk. After that it wasn't too hard to track him back to Oliver." 

"So, how'd you think of the warehouse?" 

"Jack Kelso, my friend at the university, the one who got shot helping us track Oliver before? He identified the dead guy as an associate of your Colonel Oliver, recently an employee of Graft Technologies, then we scanned their holdings and I recognized the address from before. By the way, we owe him a case of steaks." 

"We'll get him a whole herd, no problem!" Jim cupped his face in his hand and used his thumb to wipe the moisture away. "Hey, I love you." He kissed him again. "You can't know how much." 

Blair kissed him back. "It can't be more than I love you, Big Guy, there isn't that much room in the whole world." 

Another kiss, deepening until it seemed to shut out all light and sound. Until they were the only two creatures left alive in the universe. 

Jim threaded his fingers through Blair's hair. Flexing them to release the band and comb the locks free. Blair leaned forward, suddenly shy, and the strands fell like a curtain of dark silk, obscuring his face from the Sentinel's view. 

Jim sat up, pushing Blair back onto the mattress. He straddled his bedmate's form, leaning forward to take possession of his willing mouth, traveling downward applying suction along the jugular as his Guide's body squirmed helplessly beneath him. Blair grunted in surprise as Jim nipped him arduously, smiled, then leaned upward for a breath stealing kiss. 

The grad student freed his hands to reach out a caressing touch across his Sentinel's chest, down his side to the hem of his boxers. Slipping his hand under the hem to squeeze a cheek, fingers teasing at the cleft there. 

Blair lifted his face, moist lips slightly parted to entice another kiss. While Jim's mind was occupied, he hooked his leg around his back, still kissing him deeply, twisting while pushing on his shoulder, and succeeded in flipping him onto his back. He released Jim's mouth... 

"Chief..." the larger man protested, trying to reclaim his prize. 

...to immediately attach his hot mouth to a nipple, suckling hard. 

"Damn, Chief!" Jim hissed, bowing up from the mattress. 

Blair soothed it with a lick, before exploring across his chest, leaving moist trails, to the opposite nipple. Jim reached one hand up to caress his back, the other to bring his head down for a kiss. 

Blair stretched out the length of Jim's body and began rubbing their erections together. Jim groaned, then sighed as he caressed the smooth flesh of his back as his lover broke the kiss to move slowly down his chest toward his groin. He nipped his Sentinel through the barrier of his boxers. 

Jim hissed, raising slightly, the action causing his legs to open wider. Blair took advantage by pushing his knees up as he nuzzled the cloth-covered cock, sucking hard on the tip, leaving a dark, moist stain on the material. He continued until he'd worked Jim up to a frenzy, then moved back up his stomach, lapping at the navel the deep well of his navel on the way. 

As Blair reached his nipples, Jim tangled fingers in his hair, but Blair shook them off, instead interlacing their fingers to stretch their arms out to Jim's sides on bed and continue to tease and torment the nipples into tight buds. 

"Please, babe." Jim pulled until Blair released him, then snaked his hands down beneath the waistband and into Blair's shorts. 

"Ohhh, mmmm." He moaned as Jim's talented fingers encompassed his cock. 

While Blair teased his nipples, Jim stroked his erection into near painful hardness. Blair's hips moving in cadence with Jim's caresses, circles and pendulums, trying to bring himself closer to the pleasure. 

Blair licked up Jim's neck back down his chest, again nipping at erection through boxers. Jim caught the back of his head to pull him closer, but Blair shook the hands off again. He had other plans. Following the trail of moisture left by his tongue, he backtracked down his lover's neck, worrying the now taunt nipples again. 

Jim's fingers flexed helplessly in air a moment, then he reached down pulling boxers off, to free his own erection. As it sprang free, Blair immediately pounced, pulling the head into his mouth with suction, hollowing out his cheeks. Grasping the base and licked it with broad, sweeping strokes, like his favorite ice cream cone. 

Suddenly, his lover released his cock, taking his balls in his mouth with such enthusiasm it caused Jim to sit straight up with a startled cry. Blair laughed softly then returned to worry Jim's throbbing cock. 

Jim disengaged his enthusiastic lover long enough to take his boxers off. But barely had time to toss them aside before Blair had his balls in his mouth again, sucking on them until Jim was wild and begging for release. 

Jim, wanting to feel flesh on flesh, hooked his feet in the waistband of Blair's short and pulled them off. When they reached Blair ankles, he helped the process along by kicking them off into a corner with his feet while using his hands to spread Jim's legs wide. Taking a firm grip on Jim's erection, Blair took it completely in his mouth, licking it, massaging the entire length of it in firm strokes. 

"Damn, Chief! I thought I was the one who was hungry!" 

Jim leaned forward, wetting his finger in his mouth, he snaked his hand up, spreading Blair's cheeks wide, he began teasing the anus with tip of finger. Making tiny circles in the stirring motion he knows will drive Blair mad. 

"Shit, lover!" Blair curved his spine to elivate his ass. "Like that! Just like that!" Blair savored the sensations several seconds more before rising. Swinging his leg up and over Jim to sit astride him, lightly running his finger down Jim's forehead, over the bridge of his nose, over his lips. Jim captured the finger between his teeth, lapping it with broad, sweeping strokes of his tongue. 

"Damn, but you have great hands!" Blair pushed Jim's hands to either side of his head and held them there. He leaned down and kissed him hard. "Stay." 

"Blair. . ." 

When Jim realized what Blair meant to do, he shifted. 

"Stay." He ordered again as he firmly pressed Jim back into the mattress with his open hand against his lover's chest. 

"Blair. . ." 

"I want to do this." 

"The last time, you hurt yourself." 

"I know what I did wrong." 

"Blair, you made yourself bleed." 

"It'll be all right, Jim." 

"I don't want to see you hurt, love." 

"Shhh, let me do this, Jim. It means a lot to me, to feel you inside me, but for me to control it, feel your power, see your reactions yet know I'm in charge. You can't tell me you don't like it too." 

"Blood. . ." 

"There won't be any blood, no pain, I promise." 

Jim still looked apprehensive. 

"I promise," Blair repeated as he leaned down and kissed him. When he sat back, he had the lube in his hand. 

"Blair. . ." 

"Use your senses to monitor my heartrate. If you sense I'm hurting, we can stop, but it'll be all right. For now, I got plans for you." He glanced down at Jim through heavy lidded eyes. 

Jim shivered, more from the heat of that look that the temperature of the room. "Yeah?" 

Blair squeezed out a generous amount of lubricant on his fingers. Still smiling. "Yeah." 

"Am I going to like it?" He said, laughingly, then hissed when Blair began smearing his cock with gel. 

"I don't know, maybe." He leaned forward and kissed the reddened tip of his engorged cock. 

Jim groaned, writhing. 

Blair leaned over to put the tube back on the night stand. Jim sat up. Blair pushed him back flat. "Stay there." 

"Blair. . ." 

"No." He leveled himself up to kneel across Jim. 

"Chief. . ." 

"No talking." Blair steadied Jim's cock with his hand. 

"Chief. . ." 

"For ex-military, you're lousy at following orders, you know that?" Small smile as he began lowering himself on Jim's cock. 

As Jim's body came in contact with the molten heat of his heartmate's tight, gel-slick passage, his thought processes where reduced to white noise, his senses zeroing in on sensation the taut sphincter ring, like a band, the slippery snugness surrounded him, the heat, the small noises Blair was making as he made tiny, careful rocking movements as he slowly, steadily took Jim deeper inside him, centimeter by agonizing centimeter. 

All of Jim's senses urged him to grip his love by the hips and thrust up hard to finish this! Reassuring, reaffirming all they were by burying himself deep within the welcoming heat and making them one. But he looked up into his lover's face. 

Blair's eyes were closed now, his head tilted slightly back as he braced himself on his knees with his hands flat against Jim's chest. 

Jim was overcome by the exquisite sight as Blair took the fullness of his lower lip between his teeth and began to move with increasing determination. Driven by an inner song, the sound of a private euphony. One with primeval jungle drums, a rhythm Jim could almost hear in the pounding of his heart. 

Jim wanted to take him in his arms! He needed to feel the friction of his skin against Blair's skin! He wanted to press their lips together until they couldn't draw a separate breath! Fuck him until they couldn't form rational thought! Absorb one another until they shared one existence! But the need to watch the shifting patterns of that beloved face as he slowly moved toward greater and greater pleasure, knowing there was no pain this time, and it was as good for his love as it was for him, overrode everything. 

"Oh, Jim! Hmmm, ah!" 

Ellison would never tire of hearing the sounds he made, breathless hiccups of pleasure, his name on his lover's lips as he hurtled toward completion. He felt the fire amass in his groin from just watching him. Listening to him. But, soon, observing just wasn't enough... 

Releasing the bed's clothing, he gathered the fullness of Blair's hip in his left hand and took him by the base of his cock with his right and began to stroke him in time to his rocking movements. 

"Oh! Jim! Yes!" Blair threw his head back, his hair framing his face like wings. 

"You like that?" 

"Oh, yes, baby, please me!" 

Jim quickened his strokes. "Always, love." 

Blair rose up on his knees, sliding entire cock out to the tip, then pushed it in to the hilt. 

Jim leaned back, throwing his head back. "ARGH!" The sensation was so exquisite Jim cried out as he climaxed violently within his lover, Sandburg called his name as he came into his hand. Blair fell forward on to his lover's chest and Jim wrapped his arms around him. They lay like that several moments while their hearts echoed a frantic beating. 

"Fluff," Jim panted as he pressed a kiss to Blair's temple. "My head's full of fluff." 

"So tomorrow, if we can't get up, we'll write each other a note."   
  


* * *

Blair walked into his office, flicking on the light, and threw his bookbag into a corner. A new day, another week! He would have liked to have spent more time draped securely around his lover, but they barely made it into work as it was. Well, there was always this weekend. Jim had promised they'd go camping by the lake. 

Bracing himself for a dose of reality, he sat. In the center of his desk was a large manila envelope. Reaching in his shirt pocket, he took out his glass and slipped them on. Opening the flap, he looked inside and found a fifty-dollar bill, an ancient silver medallion, emblazoned with the image of a hawk in flight and a note written in a scrawling, feathery hand. 

>   
>  _  
> Dearest young Guide,_
> 
> As your Sentinel's spirit is the panther, my sentinel's spirit was the hawk. We were together over sixty-years. She died just recently and I have been drifting aimlessly, lost without her. But do not be too sad for me. I still talk to her, and I am happy I will see her very soon now. She just asked me to do this one more thing before I had to go. It was for someone very special to her. His name was Anderson Walker. He was her great-grandson. 
> 
> I was happy I could help you find your Sentinel. Tell him I said goodbye. Also tell him Anderson sends him his best wishes for much love and happiness. You see in one reality, *he* was to have been his Guide. He regrets it didn't come to pass. He liked the Panther. It is a powerful totem. 
> 
> He said, if they had gotten together, they would've been good together. 
> 
> He was jealous at first, but he sees you love him more than he could ever have. He will have another Sentinel, another time. Life is a circle. 
> 
> Be good to one another. Treasure the gift you've been given. May you enjoy many, many years together. 
> 
> We will meet again, on the other side. 
> 
> Blessings,   
>  Clara 

* * *

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